"We're off to Expo," shouted one Gaston Vincent
School pupil as he dashed down a school corridor to his group.

And at 6:30 a.m. the Grade 5 and 6 students were,
a typical school busful -- laughing, talking and singing about cuckoos, joie de
vivre and "Canada."

At the first sight of the Expo site's domes,
peaks and gleaming buildings, "oohs" and "ahhs" burst from every
child.

A scramble from the bus, a counting of
heads...and bag lunches, and they were off.

But due to a half-hour delay in the Gaston
Vincent school's arrival, the pupils and monitors were soon swallowed in a
morass of people crowding towards the turnstiles and the Expo Express as the
gates opened to the public.

A short wait and some crowding, however, and the
children were off again, oohing and ahhing some more as they caught a glimpse of
La Ronde, the magical world of color and fantasy.

LONG LINES

On the site itself, students and monitors alike
got a shock seeing the long lines already waiting in front of most pavilions.
But the wait seemed short compared with the result.

At the first stop, the Bell Telephone Pavilion,
the children stood in open-mouthed wonder at being in the centre of a mammoth
circular movie on Canada. They watched excitedly as red-coated Mounties seemed
to ride over them in a precision drill, gasped as they "followed" a careening
police car on a chase through city streets, and gasped again at the serene
early-morning beauty of Canada's northland.

Then it was on to lunch at Īle Notre-Dame Park
and more of the wonder of man and his world via the Canadian Pacific Cominco and
French pavilions.

A tired but still lively group headed back to the
buses as the late afternoon sun made the gigantic dome of the United States
pavilion glitter.

In spite of tired feet and at times a bewildered
recollection of what they had seen, the students declared the trip a
success.

So did Separate School centennial co-ordinator
Andre Richard. He'd learned from the day's trial run, he said. A monitor and his
students acting as an individual group can see the exhibits at their own rate
and get along best in the waiting lines and on the Express.

Today about 750 Ottawa Separate school children
are visiting Expo as part of an expected 16,000 school visitors.

- End of article. Copyright by The Ottawa Journal,
May 2, 1967. All
rights reserved.